LaLiga say Barcelona have never had the salary space to register Dani Olmo or Pau Víctor with Spain’s sports ministry (CSD) due to rule this week on whether the duo can play again this season.
The league has questioned the €100 million deal which led to the CSD granting Olmo and Víctor temporary registrations in January, saying they will report the unnamed auditor Barça used to verify the sale of VIP seats at Spotify Camp Nou, which is being redeveloped.
The deal was not recorded in the accounts Barça submitted to LaLiga last week for the 2024-25 season, which were approved by a different auditor.
“The financial statements show Barcelona did not have on Dec. 31, 2024, nor on Jan. 3, 2025, nor since that date the capacity to register Olmo and Víctor,” the league said in a statement on Wednesday.
LaLiga add that they have subsequently communicated to Barça “the reduction of their spending limit,” which had risen to €463m in February, while forwarding all information to the CSD and reporting the unnamed auditor to Spain’s Institute of Accounting and Auditing of Accounts (ICAC).
A club source told ESPN that Barça did not plan to respond to LaLiga’s statement. The CSD are due to make a final decision before April 7 on whether Olmo and Víctor’s registrations should be revoked for the rest of the season.
However, at a luncheon for club directors, Barcelona chief Joan Laporta commented, saying the move was “another huge attempt to destablise Barcelona.”
“Today we are playing a final against Atlético Madrid, and the reactivation of controversies of this kind isn’t a coincidence. It is just another huga attempt to destabilise our team, and sometimes I get the feeling that what they can’t beat us on the field, they want to beat us in the offices.
“As president of Barcelona, I won’t allow this and I will continue to defend the club’s interests.”
The issue has been ongoing since the turn of the year when Barça missed a Dec. 31 deadline to prove they were compliant with LaLiga’s financial regulations in order to register Olmo and Víctor for the second half of the campaign.
They had initially received temporary registrations via a league rule which allowed them to be registered in the place of a long-term injured player, in this case Andreas Christensen.
LaLiga later confirmed the sale of VIP seats for €100m had brought the club back within the regulations on Jan. 3, but that the chance to prolong Olmo and Víctor’s registrations had passed.
Barça appealed that decision to the CSD, who agreed to reinstate the registrations while they analysed the case during a three month window, which is up this week.
The CSD’s decision provoked outrage across the league, with LaLiga president Javier Tebas and Athletic Club chief Jon Uriarte voicing their complaints, while several top flight clubs also released statements questioning the ruling.
Olmo, who joined Barça from RB Leipzig last summer for around €60m, is sidelined with an adductor injury which is set to rule him out until the middle of April.
Since the CSD’s ruling, the Spain international has made 13 appearances in all competitions, including seven in LaLiga, scoring two goals and providing four assists.
Víctor, meanwhile, has featured just five times in the same period. All of the young forward’s outings have come as a substitute.
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